


Minuit

by monstersinthecosmos



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Sickfic, Vomiting, perhaps anal lovemaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:34:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26592229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstersinthecosmos/pseuds/monstersinthecosmos
Summary: The nightmare is still pressing around him, grating against his skin. It’s silent save for the ambient white noise of Black’s engines, but thenothingnessof it seems oppressive, just like it used to. It’s felt too close the last couple days, ever since he’s been awake. So far, nothing has really eased that.(Sheith Prompt Party: Keith nurses Shiro back to health after s6)
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 69
Kudos: 181
Collections: Sheith Prompt Party 2020





	Minuit

**Author's Note:**

> Suggested listening/namesake: [Minuit by Perturbator](https://youtu.be/m3SCQ8kwIvI)
> 
> I wasn't sure if this prompt was supposed to be fluffy or angsty so uhhhhhh sorry if I got it wrong 😇

now that i'm a weathered machine  
i'd give it all, i'd give everything  
to have you here to believe  
_ to believe in me _

* * *

Her voice is like a bell in the dark. 

It’s disorienting, has him dizzy as he tries to make sense of things. He’s gotten good at it, being here. He knows how to focus. He’s learned how to feel the ground beneath his feet, to imagine himself in a body to make sense of the space. But when he hears her voice it tingles, makes him feel like he could faint. 

He won’t, of course. That’s the thing about this place. It takes and takes and takes and there’s still always a tiny shred left to hurt.

But he hears her. 

“Shiro,” she says, and it’s so clear. “Follow my voice.”

He clenches his hands into fists, in and out. Takes a step and focuses on the feeling of solid ground, ground that isn’t really there. His heart races—at least, he imagines it does—as he creeps forward, towards her warm energy. He doesn’t know how he knows where to go, where she is, except that there’s something pulling. It’s like hooks in his chest, in his soul, the energy of this place connecting to something vital.

“We’re with you, Shiro,” she says. “We love you, follow my voice.”

The color slowly pulses into focus as he gets close enough. He sees the storms on the horizon, the stars. And she’s there. 

It should be comforting, but it’s jarring. She’s in the Paladin armor. Her hair is a mess. 

“Come with me,” she says, and in the space of a second she’s at Shiro’s side, taking his hands.

“Keith—“ it comes out jagged, hoarse, and he doesn’t know how long it’s been. It aches in his brain trying to figure out how much time has gone by.

_What’s the last thing you remember?_ he asks himself, because it’s the only way he can make sense of it. And he remembers Keith, and… 

“He’s safe, he’s with you,” Allura says, and she squeezes his hands. “Focus on me, Shiro. Listen to my voice. I’m going to take you with me.”

There’s a feeling like the phantom pain that comes and goes, through his whole body. Aching and stinging and he wants to shake it off but can’t move. 

“Focus on me,” she says again, and she lifts her hands to touch his face. Her hands feel so good on the sides of his head, nails scratching gently in his hair, fingertips settling along his temples. “Focus, Shiro. I’m here with you. Come with me now.”

And it’s like the lights turn on.

In Black’s void it feels hollow and dark most of the time. Endless. But he grabs Allura’s forearms, afraid she’ll disappear, and it feels like _light_. 

“I’ve got you,” she says. He hears it but he doesn’t hear it. Ears ringing. 

Black’s consciousness is cold and empty; Allura’s is full of life. Mystical and inviting. He can’t feel his body but still tries to squeeze her. Her voice is so soft and close, in his head. Comforting. _I’ve got you_. 

He’s afraid to look away from her face, but he sees the way the scenery changes in his peripheral vision. Not black anymore, but lush and familiar. He wants to turn away and _see_ , but can’t risk losing her.

“I’ve got you, Shiro, you’re safe,” she says. “It’s okay.”

It feels like he might cry as he turns from her. Can’t feel his body except for the headrush. 

The ground beneath them isn’t just solid anymore. It’s taken the shape of one of the flagstones from his childhood backyard. The moss is swelling around the stepping stones, rich green in the soft light. It’s how it used to look in the mornings, dewy and lush. He used to come out and help his grandfather mist the garden.

He can see the mist in the air but can’t feel it on his skin the way he used to. Can’t feel anything. But somehow, his body feels like the mist. He wants to panic again but Allura’s presence is so calming. 

“Stay with me,” she says softly, and he wants to cry. “I’ll bring you home.”

The words don’t quite make sense to him, but he trusts her. Accepts it. 

She leads them back, stepping gracefully across the stones, and he feels the pull of it in his soul if nowhere else. Her mouth isn’t moving but he can hear her voice, everywhere, all around them. _It’s okay Shiro. We love you. We love you._

And then… and then…

He can’t feel his body but he can taste metal. His ears are ringing. He can’t see the garden anymore as the light pulses, so bright that it hurts. It’s how it had felt when he died. 

Somehow he can see all of them, gathered around the body. He sees it because Allura sees it. She moves slowly towards them and he feels her soul all around his, cradling him. 

When she kneels and places her hands on the body he feels it instantly. 

It’s pain, everywhere. It’s being ripped from her safety, it’s being ground into somewhere he doesn’t belong. He tries to breathe and can’t, tries to open his eyes. The pain of it tears through his head so he can’t think, can only feel. 

“Shiro, _please_ ,” Keith’s voice grates out, shreds across every inch of him. He opens his mouth to speak, to scream, but he’s choking. He needs air, but all around him is death.

_You can’t do this to me again._

The warmth of Allura’s presence is receding and he doesn’t know what to do. He tries to keep her close, but he’s bound to the body. And yet the body feels all wrong. It’s all pain and poison and he can’t breathe, can’t see. It goes dark as she lets him go, and he tries to connect, tries to stay, but everything crumbles.

It’s dark again, but not like how it was with Black. Even when it felt like nothing, he always knew Black was infused into the space around him. He’s spinning, can’t find his way back. The sound of Keith crying gets farther and farther away. He’s falling between the two worlds, into the true nothingness, completely untethered.

‘Keith—“ he tries to call out.

_Keith!_

And he wakes up choking.

It’s dim and cool in the makeshift cabin, deep in Black’s cargo hold. He sits up, unbalanced by the loss of his arm, gasps at the recycled air.

“Hey, hey—“ Keith is beside him, touching the side of his neck, his chest, holding him still. “Hey we’re okay, we’re okay.”

His head throbs. 

Unconsciously he tries to push his hair out of his eyes with his right hand, and it makes him freeze as the wave of phantom pain ripples through. It feels like pins and needles in his fingers, shooting up to his shoulder, throbbing in a pressure point behind his ear. He has to take a moment to shift his weight, use his left hand instead. His hair is sweaty and damp.

Keith is sleep-ruffled but seems alert, immediately snapped into action. He crushes in close, their hips touching, and his hand on Shiro’s chest helps to remind him to breathe.

“Shiro, look at me,” he says. It’s dim in here, just the dusty yellow emergency lights, and Shiro stares until his eyes adjust. 

It feels familiar, like how it was last time. The memories of it seem far away, buried beneath the surface. The clone’s memories. Back then they’d smiled at Keith, brushed it off, saved the worst of it for when they were alone. It’s harder to do that now.

Keith is staring. The scar on his face is still glossy red. It shines in the dim light and Shiro feels the guilt like stitches in his sides. 

“I’m okay,” Shiro says, and forces a half smile. “Bad dream.”

“You want a water or something?” Keith’s voice is gravelly with sleep and, just like last time, the idea of being an inconvenience roils in his gut. He can’t decide if it’s better or worse that Keith only tolerates his silence for a few seconds before taking it upon himself, getting out of bed and rummaging through the storage box on his own.

Shiro presses himself into the corner, grateful that the lights are so low when Keith hands him the water pack and crawls back into bed. He squeezes it a few times, fussing for the sake of pretending to be less needy, as Keith settles in, draws the blanket around his hips. It gives Shiro a weird mix of guilt and pride, seeing Keith so exhausted. He’s been working too hard, thrown back into everything. 

He tries to stay as still as possible, tries not to breathe too loud. Watches Keith to see if he’s fallen back asleep yet. It’s hard to tell. He’s rolled onto his side, face squashed into his pillow and hair a mess that hides his profile. He’s giving Shiro space but his hand is hovering by Shiro’s hip, just grazing him. Right there.

The nightmare is still pressing around him, grating against his skin. It’s silent save for the ambient white noise of Black’s engines, but the _nothingness_ of it seems oppressive, just like it used to. It’s felt too close the last couple days, ever since he’s been awake. So far, nothing has really eased that. 

He swallows hard, tries not to think about it. In the dream it hadn’t worked. Allura had lost him, somewhere Black couldn’t even save him anymore. The nothingness with Black had been oppressive and terrifying, but being lost completely was… was…

His hand shakes as he brings the water pack to his mouth to tear the straw away, and he lets out a little sigh as he repositions himself, trying to figure out how to pop it in one-handed. He’s about to wedge the pack between his knees when Keith lifts his head.

“Oh, sorry,” he mumbles. He props himself up on his elbow to take the water back, to open it. He sips it, himself, before returning it. Shiro offers a weak smile as Keith wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

And last time… 

He would’ve buckled under the way Keith stares up at him from the mattress. A memory rings through his head, a moment like this. Keith had lingered in the doorway, wanting to help and unconvinced that the clone was okay. Of course, he hadn’t been. 

_We hadn’t been_ , Shiro thinks, and tries to make space in his mind for that idea.

They’d waited until Keith was gone, listened at the door to make sure he was away, and still took the extra safety of hiding in the bathroom to cry.

It’s an instinct to do that again, but he’s pressed into the corner with nowhere to go.

“I’m…” he fusses with the water, not even drinking from it now that it’s open, “…sorry. About this. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Keith stares for long enough that he sips the water just out of nervousness, just to do something. He chews on the end of the straw and tries not to look away.

“It’s fine,” Keith finally says. He puts his hand on Shiro’s thigh, gives him a reassuring little squeeze. He still looks sleepy, fucking worn out, but with the adrenaline of the situation wearing off he seems softer. Something inside tells Shiro that all of Keith’s hard edges are him being defensive, protective. Tells him that Keith isn’t mad. It’s hard to believe and he chews at the straw again, takes another small sip. 

The water feels cool all the way down, spikes in his gut as it settles, and with the adrenaline receding he’s remembering how sick he’s been feeling. He takes a deep breath and tries to keep drinking, knowing that Keith will scold him, but he doesn’t think he can stomach it.

“Are you okay?” Keith asks. He pets up and down Shiro’s thigh and it’s so comforting, so grounding, and he can’t tell if the nausea is his nerves screaming to pull away or if it’s the constant displacement sickness he’s been stuck in since he woke up.

_It’s fine, I’m fine_ , the clone would’ve said. And Shiro wants to do better this time but he’s not quite ready.

He forces a smile. God, Keith looks so exhausted. “Go back to sleep.”

* * *

_We love you, Shiro_.

It’s not quite dreaming, but he’s not quite awake, either. Allura’s voice keeps echoing inside his head, and it should be a reminder, an anchor, but it feels like a threat. He can’t shake the feeling that she lost him, that it didn’t work, that he’s nowhere anymore. 

Not awake, but not really sleeping.

He doesn’t know how much time has gone by when Keith stirs and begins to get up. He wishes there were windows, or some indication of a day cycle, anything, but he also knows that anything brighter than the cool emergency running lights would hurt his eyes. 

It must be for Shiro’s sake that Keith is getting ready in the near-dark. He’s sitting at the edge of the bed, bent forward and buckling in his boots. Shiro watches him for a moment, in secret, in awe. There’s the swell of pride again, impressed by seeing the way he’d taken control, the unfamiliar frame of his earned discipline. And the swell of guilt, too. He should be getting more sleep, doesn’t need to be babysitting so much.

Keith cracks his knuckles and runs his hand through his hair, sits back up. He sighs and Shiro can’t know why, but the guilt crackles again. It feels obvious to blame himself. Last time he’d at least been able to hide. The castle was big enough for that. But here, they’re so… close.

Shiro’s whole body aches. He feels too heavy. It’s not that he wants to complain about it; he’s glad to _have_ a body, but everything feels wrong. If he stays still maybe he can get comfortable. Maybe he can fall back asleep. Maybe…maybe…

But he sits up, right as Keith is standing and going to grab his helmet from the top of the storage case slash nightstand. His elbow cracks as he pushes himself up, and he sees spots as all the blood leaves his head.

“Woah, woah,” Keith says. He’s back at Shiro’s side an instant, half-kneeled on the bed and reaching to touch Shiro’s chest. The pressure of his hands is so grounding. Comforting, even as he’s trying to shove Shiro back down. “Go back to bed.”

“I want to help,” Shiro says, even as he buckles under Keith’s touch. His stomach roils. There’s no fight in him, really, but the guilt is making all the illness worse. He tries to push himself up again, wobbling a little beneath Keith’s strength, but the thing that disarms him is the way Keith _laughs_.

Wasn’t expecting that.

It brings light back into his face. It feels like years since he’s seen Keith laugh.

“You’re a lunatic,” he says gently, smiling. He pets Shiro’s chest as he relaxes, letting him settle down before expanding outward, rubbing his shoulder above the stump. “Go back to bed, you need to sleep.”

Shiro doesn’t want to, but his eyes are fluttering closed as Keith massages his shoulder. He sinks back down into the pillows. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“Not funny.”

He cracks one eye open. “Too soon?”

Keith is shaking his head and the corner of his mouth twitches, trying not to dignify Shiro’s terrible sense of humor. He finally pulls back, combs his fingers through Shiro’s hair. 

Fuck, it feels good.

He can’t remember if Keith has ever done this before. Or anybody. There’s a full-bodied warmth that rolls through and he relaxes, closes his eyes again. Keith scratches him behind the ear.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers, and then leans in to kiss Shiro on the cheek. 

Shiro breathes through the discomfort, hoping he’s still enough that it doesn’t show. Keith pets his hair until he’s swept back under.

* * *

He’s not really asleep.

Maybe split between two worlds. Split between two people. He’s vaguely aware that he can feel the bed around him, hear the hum of the ship. Even with Black’s stabilizers he still feels the occasional turbulence, the gentle rocking. But he feels the mist again, all around him. And a moment ago he could feel the plush nest of the blankets, but now he thinks he’s sinking into the moss.

The air in the garden is sweet and damp but when he takes a deep breath it just feels like the stale air in space. He’s tangled into both worlds, not sure what’s real. Not sure where he wants to be.

It feels like he’s disappearing again. It isn’t sharp and hot and painful like the first time he died. Slow and easy this time, tiny pieces of himself being drawn away in a tide. He opens his eyes and sees the trees, the orange underbelly of the clouds at dusk. His body is sinking into the moss, becoming it maybe, the same way he feels like each breath is turning him into the mist. 

And this is okay.

Peaceful and safe and he’s almost gone when he remembers a moment like this, trapped in a borrowed cruiser with the oxygen running out.

He starts awake, gasping, head throbbing, and there are too many fucking blankets, it’s too hot, and he’s trying to claw his way out before he gets sick.

Everything is wrapped around his legs and he barely makes it to the edge of the bed, grabbing blindly for the waste basket to puke. It’s still embarrassing that Keith left it out for him, but he’s grateful for it as he wretches. It burns everywhere, cramps in his stomach, tears through his throat. His eyes water and he coughs, moans, tries to catch his breath, but it won’t stop. 

It’s like the body knows something is wrong. Knows he doesn’t belong here.

His teeth are chattering when it finally stops, and he rolls onto his back, stares at the ceiling. He can feel the tears stuck in his eyelashes and pouts a little as he wipes them away, frustrated with himself.

Keith is out there, piloting and leading, and Shiro wants to be there, too. 

It’s how the clone had felt, too, those first few days.

But the clone wasn’t this sick, and they both know it. Slightly malnourished, fucking traumatized, but there wasn’t this cosmic autoimmune bullshit. If that’s what it is. That’s what Shiro thinks it is.

His breaths are shaky as he comes down. He reaches to pull a blanket up higher, trap the warmth in against the unforgiving chill of Black’s hull. There’s too many blankets, all bunched around each other, and he considers getting up to straighten them out but thinks it might upset Keith if he fusses with them too much.

Imagining it makes him smile, so at least there’s that. It’s one of those strange ways that Keith can be fucking adorable, even though he won’t ever admit it. Shiro thinks if he ever says as much to Keith’s face it might earn him a right hook.

They’d packed up the castle without him. He hadn’t been conscious yet, had been drifting and dreaming somewhere. It was disorienting to wake up to, maybe even a little heartbreaking, and he’d felt guilty again when he saw how much shit Keith had been able to salvage. Shiro had slept through the whole thing but imagines Keith laser-focused, top speed, cheating by using his wolf. He’d been sparse with his own belongings, as far as Shiro can tell—Keith has never been too sentimental about stuff like that—but he’d managed to grab every ounce of garbage Shiro had amassed in his own cabin. Some it is stuff that Shiro would’ve left behind, but Keith had saved all of it, given Shiro the chance to make those decisions himself.

And he’d grabbed all the bedding. From both of their beds. Maybe he even found more. When Shiro woke, Keith had walked him down here and helped him into bed, and he’d had it all arranged just-so. Keith will never admit it but Shiro thinks he was preening a little bit as he tucked Shiro in. 

Stuff like this is important to him. He’s hard to read sometimes, but Shiro knows this much.

It takes a while for his stomach to settle. There’s no clocks in here, no datapads, nothing to give him any clue how long has gone by. It seizes in his shoulders, makes his body tense. It’s too familiar to how it had been in the dark. He still doesn’t know how long he’d been gone. 

The tension makes him feel sick again but he breathes through it, wills it away. Sits up slowly and rubs his face. Untangles himself from the blankets again. 

His legs are weak and he still feels like shit but thinks he can stand, move around a little. He’s willing to try, at least. Everything creaks when he gets up, and there’s a joke about being an old timer somewhere, floating at the forefront, that he’d say out loud if anyone were here to listen. And he doesn’t know how long he was gone, but there’s still a sense in his mind that he’s _aged_. It’s like there’s too much stored in his head now, too many lifetimes. Too many people.

Black is cruising and stable, Keith piloting smooth and graceful, but he stills holds the wall as he creeps towards the bulkhead door. He struggles with the lever to open it, has to pause and try again.

This is such a fucking mess.

The air is cooler out in the access corridor, feels good on his face even as his body aches. He keeps holding the wall as he walks towards the bathroom, feeling exposed as he steps farther and farther away from their cabin. It’s ridiculous—he’s an adult, he can go to the bathroom by himself—but he knows, really _knows_ , that Keith would be pissed if he knew he was wandering around alone. 

But Keith is busy. He’s piloting, he’s dealing with the Paladins and passengers and pets. Shiro isn’t sure which category he’s falling under now. He’s the patient, perhaps.

Awful. 

He does his best to avoid the mirror as he navigates around the small bathroom. No need to feel even weirder in his skin. He splashes water on his face, brushes his teeth. It doesn’t fix anything, really, but takes the edge off, makes him feel just slightly more human. He bends over the sink, running the cool water through his fingers, rubbing it into his temples, taking little sips. He wonders what’s going on in the cockpit. Wants to check on them.

Keith would be mad, he knows that. He’s not sure he’s up for the walk all the way over there anyway. But it’s unnerving, being down here in the belly of the lion, while they operate without him.

But they’ve been operating without him for a long time, haven’t they?

He rubs his hand over his breastbone, trying to calm down. His body shudders, goosebumps rise all over his skin. He even feels it on the missing right arm, tingling there, struggling to be heard.

At least he can get sick in the bathroom, this time. More dignified. He thinks, as he cleans himself up again after, that he should take care of the wastebasket before Keith gets back. Keith didn’t sign up to be somebody’s nurse. They’ve been through a lot together but it still seems like crossing a line.

Somewhere in his mind he’s intending to do all of that. Maybe clean up their cabin a little bit, sort through the pile of random wares Keith salvaged from the castle. He might not be helping with the team and with Voltron stuff right now, but that doesn’t mean he has to be useless. 

But he collapses onto the bed the moment he gets back. 

He’s glad Keith made them this weird blanket nest, to be honest. Grateful for it as he curls up, as he falls asleep.

Well, something like sleep.

It’s not really sleep.

* * *

Keith’s voice rouses him.

It’s distant and tinny and Shiro thinks he’s dreaming again, but finally realizes it’s coming from the comm in his helmet. Keith had left it out on the nightstand. Shiro has to blink the confusion away and untangle from the covers to reach for it and pull it back into bed with him.

It would feel silly to put it on his head, but talking into it feels silly, too. Oh well.

“Yeah,” he rasps. “I’m here.”

“Oh, hi,” Keith says. His tone is lifted instantly, like he’s happy to hear Shiro’s voice. “Just checking in. How are you feeling?”

“Do you want a lie or the truth?”

Keith laughs softly. Hearing it through the filter of the comm speaker makes him sound so husky. It reverberates between Shiro’s thighs. He breathes through his nose and squeezes his legs together, tries to focus.

“Anyway,” Keith continues like it’s no big deal, like he knew the answer the whole time. Shiro draws the helmet closer and hears the sounds of the controls in the background. “Just wanted to say hi. You think you’re up for food?”

His stomach clenches around nothing, reminding him that he’s very much not up for food, but he doesn’t know if he should say that. What a bold joke, asking if Keith wants a lie or the truth, when Shiro doesn’t even know which one he’s feeling up to sharing.

“I’ll try,” he answers after a moment. The idea of getting lectured is enough to at least play along for now.

“I’ll tell Hunk to keep it simple,” Keith says. There’s a fondness in his voice that’s kinda weird to hear. “Nothing too aggressive.”

“Thanks.”

Something is beeping in the cockpit and Keith groans.

“Hey, Shiro,” he says, and Shiro can hear him moving around. “I’ll call you back. Get some rest, I’ll send the wolf with food.”

And that’s that.

He puts the helmet away on the nightstand and flops onto his back. 

They didn’t have a space wolf last time. It was just Keith, every day, showing up at their door like clockwork, with meals and water and reminding him to bathe. It had been such a mindfuck of both anxiety and gratitude, not sure which one to choose. There’s no denying how good it felt that someone _cared_ , and for it to come from Keith felt even heavier. But there was shame, too. Not wanting Keith to see them like that. It was too much. Too soon.

It’s too familiar, and not in a way that feels good.

There’s two ways through this, he figures. One is that he chills for a few days, takes it easy, lets Keith take care of him. The other is that he pushes through and gets used to it. 

That’s how it’s always been.

He just needs to figure this out before he starts feeling sorry for himself.

The air in here is heavy and everything smells a little metallic, but he closes his eyes and breathes deep, tries to conjure his grandfather’s garden again. Tries to remember. If his body didn’t hurt so much he’d sit up straight, maybe try a half-lotus like his grandfather taught him. They used to sit outside in the morning before his mom woke up, while it was still cool. When he was little he used to think the way the mist stuck to him was gross, but once he became immersed it felt like the garden was part of him, everywhere. 

The clone remembers it, too. He knows because it flares in the bottom of his head. For a moment he wants to be bitter, to keep it to himself, but he can see his grandfather’s face in his mind and the guilt makes him relax. He breathes deep, works through his muscle systems. Contracts and relaxes. 

That the memory flared wasn’t territorial, he realizes. It wasn’t a flex. It seems… friendly, maybe. _Hey, we share this,_ it seems like he’s saying.

But where is it coming from? Shiro doesn’t know. He breathes deep, rubs his hand over his chest, and he can _feel_ the clone in there somewhere. Only it feels less parasitic now. More like a… companion. 

He breathes through it, concentrates the way Grandpa taught them. Lies completely still, until the pain fades, the illness, the feeling. Like he’s floating. This is exactly the place he used to go, back in the garden in the morning. Getting gentle little lectures about being good to himself.

And... isn’t this how he’d felt while he was dead?

His eyes shoot open and he freezes, bones aching as his body goes rigid. 

_Fuck_.

“Fuck,” he says out loud. He scratches at his chest, through his shirt, to feel his heartbeat, to know he’s really here. The room spins and he might puke again and his eyes burn and he wants to call Keith back but doesn’t even know what he’d say and feels so powerless to move anyway and it’s stupid because he knows by the time he can sit up and grab his helmet that he’ll lose the nerve anyway but he wants Keith wants Keith wants Keith—

He’s startled at the way the wolf pops into the room. 

Still dizzy, and maybe that makes it even more unsettling, and he lifts himself up on his forearm to look.

The wolf stares for a moment, unblinking, then sets the parcel in his mouth down on the side table. He comes closer to the bed, sits on his hind legs and rests his chin on the edge of the mattress. They stare at each other in an awkward silence for a moment. Shiro isn’t sure why, but he feels so fucking _seen_. He almost recoils, but then decides he’s being ridiculous.

“Hey… boy,” he says. He stretches to pet him and winces as he rolls too hard onto his stump. The wolf pushes in closer so that Shiro can reach. “Keith sent you to feed me, huh?”

He glances over at the parcel and he doesn’t even know what it is but definitely doesn’t want it. The wolf keeps staring, intense enough that Shiro wonders if he’s trying to guilt him into eating something. There’s this weird depth in his eyes, like he understands more than he can let on. It makes Shiro paranoid. 

“Don’t tell on me,” he says. He scratches behind the wolf’s ears. “Keith worries.”

He understands why Keith keeps saying the wolf will _tell them_. Shiro believes it.

The wolf huffs and his ears twitch, and he headbutts Shiro’s hand out of the way so that he can rear back and climb up onto the bed. He flops onto Shiro’s chest, heavy and solid.

“Oof,” Shiro says, and starts laughing. It catches him off guard, enough that it tapers off. His eyebrows knit together and he curls his arm around the wolf’s neck, leans into him. He can’t remember the last time he laughed; it feels foreign.

The weight on his body should make him feel more sick, he thinks. It should upset his sensitive stomach even more. Instead, it keeps him in one piece. The wolf’s paws press in hard for a moment as he leans forward, stretches towards the corner of the bed to bite at one of the blankets, then pulls it back towards them. Shiro laughs again, but he lets himself this time as he tucks the blanket around himself. 

“Thanks,” he says, and pats the wolf on the head. The wolf makes a pleased huff and settles in, chin digging into Shiro’s breast bone. The eye contact is less awkward this time. It feels softer now, more comforting. 

He wonders how it was for Keith, if these two had moments like this. All that time together…

It disrupts the peace again, the way the anxiety tears through his chest. He gasps for air and almost sits up but the wolf leans in, holds him down, stares into his face again. It’s fucking weird. Uncanny that somehow he knows what the wolf is thinking. Telling him to stay put. Telling him he’s okay.

If he were a stronger man, he’d probably say it out loud. _I’m okay. I’m okay._

But it’s eerie that the wolf probably knows that. Probably knows exactly what he needs to do, just to be here. 

Shiro scratches behind the wolf’s ears, and the weight of the dense body draped across his chest forces him to count his breaths. He focuses, measures it, feels the air coming in and out. The wolf must feel it, must know when Shiro’s heartbeat is back under control. He settles down, rests his head on his paws, closes his eyes.

And it’s silly but it makes Shiro feel okay. 

_I’m okay._

“You’re a good boy,” he mumbles, and he keeps petting, keeps breathing, until he drifts off again.

* * *

“Come on, dude.”

It’s the first time since he’s been in this body that he hasn’t woken up panicked. He doesn’t even open his eyes. The wolf is still curled up with him and he knows it’s Keith’s voice and he’s alert immediately but not so scared. 

He wonders if it’s rude to pretend to sleep, to listen to the way Keith is arguing with the wolf, but he could use the levity. He tries not to laugh as he listens to the struggle.

“You’re being a fuckin skutch,” he grumbles, and he must be trying to tug the wolf off the bed. “Would you _move_?”

The wolf grunts and Keith sighs. Silence passes between them and he wonders if they’re communicating, maybe on a different level than what Shiro can sense. He wants to ask about it later. Everything is so new right now, there’s been too much ground to cover.

“Fine, sure,” Keith sighs. “Whatever.”

The wolf rises, gently as if not to disturb Shiro, and then the weight is gone, the warmth, and Shiro would miss it if Keith didn’t immediately slide in to replace him.

Keith curls in, gets under the blankets, puts his hand on Shiro’s chest. Shiro waits till he’s settled in before he finally opens his eyes and turns his head.

“What’s a skutch?”

Keith flinches and leans back. “Fuck, I thought you were asleep.”

Shiro offers him a smile. “I was for a little while.”

He’s glad that Keith rolls his eyes as he comes back in, that he doesn’t make a big deal about it. He even flicks at the metal sticking out of Shiro’s stump. “You’re such a jerk.”

“Well what does it mean?”

“It means _pain in the ass_. Krolia says it a lot, I guess I picked it up from her.”

“When you were in the abyss.”

It’s not a question, and Keith doesn’t really confirm. But Shiro still says it out loud, just to make sense of it. He missed too much. 

“I think she learned it from watching gangster movies with my dad,” Keith says, trace of a smile as he thinks about it. “I think she was saying it to make me feel like, more at home? She kept trying to remember stuff about Earth.”

“Did it work?”

Keith breathes deep through his nose and cuddles in closer. “I mean. Not really. Not in the way she wanted it to. But it was nice that she was trying.”

They both go quiet, breathe slowly. Shiro still feels like shit but thinks he actually slept for a little while with the wolf. He feels more rested than he’s felt this whole time. After a moment, Keith reaches up to brush Shiro’s bangs out of his face, to study him. His hand lingers there, over Shiro’s forehead. His face pinches in focus. 

“Shit, Shiro, I think you have a fever.” 

“Explains why I thought the dog was talking to me.”

Keith sits up, unamused. “Don’t joke about that, you’re not funny,” he grumbles, even as Shiro chuckles about it. He pushes the blankets to the side. “Fuck, are you too hot?”

“It’s fine,” Shiro lies. “I’m fine.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry, let me get rid of some of the blankets.”

He seems more distressed than is strictly necessary, working around Shiro’s body to rearrange everything. All the peace and humor is draining out of his face. The wolf even perks up from the floor, watching both of them, wary.

“Keith, I’m fine. Relax.”

“I don’t think you’re fine,” he snaps. He stops and settles back, sitting up on his knees in the middle of all the bedding. He squeezes his hands into fists and rests them in his lap. Takes a breath to collect himself. “I don’t think you’re fine. And I—“ his voice cracks and he tilts his head to the side like it’ll reset his demeanor. “I don’t know what to do to help you right now.”

“Keith—“

“I’m sorry, I just. I don’t know what to do.”

Shiro sighs. His head throbs. It was easier last time, just hiding it from him. 

Maybe it made sense to before, like he still had that last shred to keep to himself. But now…

They’ve seen too much, he thinks. He watches Keith, the way he’s rubbing his forehead in frustration, the way he winces and lightly traces the scar on his face for a moment. It probably still hurts. Shiro remembers his hurting every time he moved his face, for weeks. The guilt of it cramps through his stomach, but maybe it’s the usual nausea he’s been feeling all day anyway.

He moves slowly, afraid he’ll puke if he goes too fast, and reaches to put a hand on Keith’s leg.

“It’ll pass,” he says, not completely confident. “It’s just…”

It’s just what?

Everything he wants to say sounds like a lie, because he doesn’t know, either. _It’s normal when you switch bodies. I died, you know. Just a space flu. This body is too new, it’s rejecting me._ The nagging clone voice in his mind wants to scream at him. _No, you’re rejecting_ it _._

Keith turns to look at him, expression soft. Shiro sees it in slow motion, the thick lashes and crease of concern, the way his lips part like he’s about to say something. Whether it’s the fever or general mooniness, Shiro can’t be sure. He absorbs it all the same, trying to let it center him, comfort him. 

He knows they’ve seen Keith lead but it’s more than just the clone’s knowledge lurking around. It’s not from extra memories stuffed into his head. But he remembers it from when he was dead, when he was tangled up in Black, seeing Keith because Black could see him, being with him while he piloted. Moments with Keith were the only reason he survived the void. 

Between all that and the extra years Keith had away, he seems so much older now. 

And yet… all this time, and how much they’ve aged, and it hits Shiro how young they actually are. Keith looks exhausted but he doesn’t look _old_. The moment stretches out, and he wonders what it would’ve been like if he hadn’t dragged Keith into all of this. If he’d come home from Kerberos, helped Keith graduate. The idea of him free, unburdened, a regular twenty-three year old squeezes around Shiro’s heart. 

But the moment ends, the room comes back to regular speed, and Keith’s face falls and he’s standing up. 

“Fuck, Shiro, your nose is bleeding.”

Shiro blinks. He reaches up to touch, to see for himself, and feels the way it’s pooling on his upper lip. He tries to sit up on core strength alone, holding his hand to his face, and he wobbles from the strain but makes it.

Keith is digging through one of the storage cases as Shiro tries to keep it covered. As soon as he sits up a bolt of pain creeps through his skull, and he feels the blood gushing, and he tries to scoot back to lean against the wall. 

He reaches to grab the towel from Keith’s hand as he comes back over and kneels next to Shiro on the bed, but Keith rolls his eyes and swats Shiro’s hand out of the way.

“Keith, please, I can do it.”

“Shut up,” Keith mumbles. He holds the towel to Shiro’s face and slides in as close as he can, cups the back of Shiro’s head with his other hand. “Tilt your head forward?”

Shiro’s heart races. He hesitates, like there’s some last bastion of propriety between them, a last bit of himself he doesn’t want to share. Being in Keith’s hands, feels… terrifying. But Keith is pushing him into place, anyway, and as he finally lets go, he realizes he’s been in Keith’s hands before, on this literal level. It’s odd, the idea of _trust_ transcending from something emotional and nebulous to something tangible.

The memory is right on the surface and he thinks it’s his own. The clone had been unconscious by that point, hanging there, Keith squeezing around his wrist and groaning as he tried to hold on. Shiro would’ve screamed if he could, from the void, as he approached with Black. 

It’s stupid, it’s just a fucking bloody nose, it’s just letting Keith help, but Shiro feels panic coming on. He shakes as he tips his head down, unable to stop the hitch in his breath. It makes him choke on the blood for a moment.

“Hey, hey,” Keith says. He cradles Shiro’s head, rubs circles into his scalp. “Relax for me.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” His voice is so calm, confident. It makes Shiro want to cry. He shuts his eyes against it but feels it burning in his nose, maybe making it bleed worse. He’s so self conscious about how hard he’s breathing; Keith is so close, can feel all of it. “Seriously, you gotta relax.”

“Sorry,” he says again, voice tight.

“Stop saying sorry,” Keith says, and he keeps up the soothing motions, fingertips in Shiro’s hair. Shiro’s whole body is seizing and he’s torn in both directions; wanting to sink into that feeling, wanting to allow himself the comfort, but it’s just… 

“I know it’s a lot,” Shiro says. He sounds pathetic, in his own ears, muffled by the towel in his face and congested by the blood. Keith inches closer, squeezes his leg between Shiro and the wall, locking them together. That Shiro wants to flee, that his body goes rigid as he realizes how cornered he is, isn’t a reflection on Keith, really. He doesn’t necessarily feel violated, doesn’t sincerely want to escape. It’s just…

A lot.

Keith doesn’t say anything, but his presence there is steady. And it occurs to Shiro, quietly, cracking open inside, that it’s the clone again, telling him that Keith is safe. It’s a force gently begging, something that needs the closure from fucking up the first time. _He’s safe. He’s safe. He loves you._

It shreds his insides as he tries not to cry. He stupidly tries to tell himself it’s just because he doesn’t want his nose running even worse, doesn’t want to confront the idea of crying in front of Keith. He clenches his jaw, squeezes the blanket in his fist, breathes through his teeth. He tries to relax, to unlock his muscles, but hunching over like this has his whole body so stiff. 

Keith’s hand strays down to rub at the back of Shiro’s neck, then between his shoulders.

“Relax,” he says again, and it’s not so much a command as a reminder. It doesn’t sound bossy or judgmental, doesn’t sound impatient. That he’s being so good about everything just makes Shiro want to cry even worse.

But he doesn’t. He tries rolling his shoulders, tries to remember what Grandpa used to say about running through all the muscle groups. Contracting, releasing. His breaths are still catching and he can taste the blood in the back of his throat, but he keeps trying. He thinks he’s almost got it when he senses the clone again, deep in his being, helpfully reminding him to breathe into the chakras. 

There’s the weird flare of jealousy again, of possessiveness, not sure how to cope with the idea that it’s a memory they share. But he’s right, isn’t he? And the reminder helps him remember their grandfather’s face again, his smile, the papery touch of his hand in theirs. 

Weirdly, it hurts a little less to think about than it normally does. It’s less lonely now. 

It’s that thought that eases the tension from his frame. He breathes it out, like a weight off his back. It’s been years thinking that he was the sole survivor, the only person left who remembered. And now there’s someone else.

Keith rubs his back and he hears the wolf shuffling closer again, his nails clicking on the floor. Shiro can’t see him, but feels the way he’s watching them. It’s terrible, being watched like this. Too familiar, something he’s tried to leave behind. He wants to shake out of his skin, but breathes through it, stays calm, knows he has nowhere to go.

“I don’t know why I’m so sick,” he admits. It’s easier to say with his eyes closed, with his head down, no pressure to meet Keith’s gaze. Keith scratches at the base of his skull. “I’m really sorry for putting this on you. It’s not your problem.”

Keith grunts. “Don’t be an idiot.”

He tentatively pulls the towel away and touches Shiro’s chin to get him to lift his head. It’s scary and his heart threatens to race again, but he opens his eyes to watch Keith’s reaction. Keith’s face is all business, laser focused and clinical as he pinches the bridge of Shiro’s nose and squints at him. 

“Let’s give it a couple more minutes,” he says, and then he’s easing Shiro’s head forward again. 

The silence is stifling between them and Shiro’s pulse is fluttering but he keeps his breathing even. Progress. He’s trying to figure out what he wants to say, trying to work up the courage, but Keith speaks first.

“I know it’s… awkward,” he says, and he slows the way he’s stroking Shiro’s head like he needs to think. “I don’t mean to crowd you so much.”

_He’s safe. He loves you._

Shiro swallows and reaches up to touch the towel, thinking he’s going to take over, but Keith doesn’t let go. He settles for slipping his hand around Keith’s.

“I’m sorry, I hate being a burden,” he whispers. “I know you’re annoyed.” 

“I’m not annoyed.”

“It’s okay, I get it, I know you have a lot to deal with and this is the last thing you need to be worrying about.”

He pulls the towel away again, not even checking the blood, but forcing Shiro to meet his eyes. 

Two years he was gone, by himself. And Shiro was gone, too, but the clone remembers. Right at the end there, the way Keith just showed up like that, and something had been different about him. Shiro wonders if the others can see how much he’s aged, himself.

“Shiro,” Keith says. It’s just stern enough. Commanderly, and it squirms in Shiro’s stomach. He’s a different person now but… “I swear I’m not annoyed. I’m here no matter what, okay?”

Older, but still Keith. 

Shiro blinks back the tears again and wonders if his eyes look puffy. He can’t speak, just nods. They stare at each other for a heavy moment, letting the words sink in, and then Keith checks the bleeding again. He swipes Shiro’s upper lip with his thumb, dragging across the stubble, but he seems satisfied. He eases back, tosses the towel into the corner, and grabs a water from the nightstand.

“I’m sorry, too,” he says, as he pops the straw inside and hands it to Shiro. He looks away, reaching to pet the wolf as a deflection while Shiro drinks the water. “I didn’t realize it was this bad.”

Shiro cracks a smile, cornered and desperate to turn it into a joke. “I didn’t realize we had this type of relationship.” 

Keith’s face falls flat and it spikes in Shiro’s chest. He coughs around the water.

“Sorry,” he amends. “I didn’t… mean it like that.”

Keith shrugs and he’s doing his best to hide his reaction, but the expressionless mask is enough of a giveaway. He turns a little more towards the wolf, petting with both hands now, playing with his ears. Shiro can only see his profile now, doesn’t see his scar anymore.

Keep breathing.

“I don’t know what to do, either,” he says. Keith’s ears perk up, so do the wolf’s. Shiro bites the end of his straw.”It just… it didn’t feel like this last time.”

“Last time?”

“When…” he clears his throat. “When the clone showed up. We—he didn’t let you help last time.”

Keith turns back to stare at him. His eyes are glowing a little bit. 

“He could have.”

The clone’s presence, trying to be helpful all this time, recedes back in shame. Shiro feels it like a weight sinking in his chest, and his skin feels hot again, he might get sick. His teeth chatter and he bites down on the straw to try to hide it. 

Keith rubs his eyes and gives the wolf a final pat on the head before he inches back to his place in the bed. His body is still tense, guarded, and he doesn’t lie back down, but he pulls the blankets up to his hips. His voice is rough when he speaks again.

“I’m doing my best here, Shiro…”

Reassuring him and complimenting him seems like it would come off insincere, patronizing. He can’t bring himself to do it, even though he means it. He stares into his lap, instead, lets the quiet swallow them. He sips at the water until he can’t anymore; it’s not finished, but his stomach is cramping. He leans behind Keith to put the packet on the nightstand, next to the untouched food from earlier.

Keith glances at it. 

“Did you eat anything?” he asks. All business again. He rubs his eyes. 

Obviously not, but Shiro doesn’t want to say so. He shrugs and starts to lie back down, sniffling and rubbing at his nose to make sure it’s done bleeding. The room spins for a moment as he repositions and it takes a moment to get his bearings once he settles in. 

Keith watches him for a moment, almost like he’s going to start lecturing, but he finally lies down, too. He calls out the command to turn the lights lower, even though the emergency piping always stays on, glowing in the corners. It’s just enough to see the shape of him.

“Eat something tomorrow, okay?”

“I’ll try. Sorry.”

“S’okay, just… yeah.” Keith shifts, pulls the blankets around them. “Are you too hot?”

“It’s fine.”

“Shiro.”

He wipes sweat at the edge of his forehead and blushes in the dark. “A little.”

Keith doesn’t say anything to make it weirder, but sits up to rearrange the blankets. Shiro sinks into his pillow and wishes he could disappear, wishes he was sinking into the moss. He closes his eyes and pictures it on his skin again, cold and damp. How the fuck did they get all the way out here?

When Keith settles back down he doesn’t curl in against Shiro’s body the way he usually does. Shiro wants it to mean that Keith is sparing him from the body heat, and he thinks it’s probably more comfortable this way, but it stings a little. He stays still, tries to breathe, tries to sleep, and he’s glad for the cool air but can’t help feeling the rift between them. Keith is so still that Shiro thinks he’s still awake. It’s too deliberate. Too stifling.

It’s hard to know how long has gone by. He knows the wolf is asleep from the breathy little snores coming from the floor and knows that Keith isn’t, for the opposite reason. Keith probably knows Shiro is awake, too, and they just sit in silence, pretending.

“Hey, Shiro?” he asks into the dark. 

“Yeah?”

He hears Keith swallow. “How much do you remember?”

His chest seizes and his eyes open. It throbs in his head and he thinks his nose might bleed again.

_All of it._

But before he can say that his stomach clenches and he scrambles to sit up. He’s blocked in by Keith’s body and doesn’t have time to think, winds up draping across Keith’s lap to grab for the wastebasket. 

“Oh, fuck,” Keith says, and he’s sitting up, scooting back. He leans down to get the wastebasket himself, drags it closer to them so that Shiro isn’t straining so much as he empties his guts. It’s all water and bile but he can’t stop, and his eyes are watering and his nose is running and he can’t believe this is where his life is at.

This sucks.

“Fuck, Shiro,” Keith says, and he sounds so soft. His free hand rubs Shiro’s shoulders through it and he thinks if he wasn’t so busy that he’d cry. Maybe he’ll cry later. Can’t right now. 

There’s this gentle litany of _It’s okay_ and _I got you_ and _Shh you’re okay you’re okay_. _It’s okay baby._

He doesn’t think Keith has ever called him _baby_.

As it tapers down his weight collapses across Keith’s thighs. One of his knees is digging into Shiro’s hip bone but he doesn’t want to move. He stays as still as he can, so fucking embarrassed but genuinely out of energy as Keith continues to rub his back. He curls in to kiss the back of Shiro’s head, then leans against Shiro’s shoulder, just stays there for a little while. He sets the wastebasket on the ground and pushes Shiro’s sweaty bangs away from his forehead, plays with his hair, scratches his scalp. It feels good. He hates that it feels so good, that he just wants to stay here like this. He thinks he could sleep like this.

He’s almost dozed off when Keith shifts beneath him, gently trying to extract himself. Shiro almost panics but gets a hold of himself, tries to push up onto his knees to unpin Keith’s legs.

“Do you think you can keep some water down?”

“I don’t know.”

Keith stares for a moment, like he’s trying to decide what to do. It’s dark but Shiro can make out the shape of his face, the slight glow of his eyes. He squeezes Shiro’s shoulder and gets out of bed. The wolf is awake, watching them, watching as he hands Shiro the unfinished water from before. And Shiro knows he needs to drink it, knows all the reasons why, but fuck. His whole body hurts. Keith probably sees his apprehension. 

“Don’t drink that till I get back,” he says, and he grabs the wastebasket. “Just in case.”

Shiro almost asks where Keith is going, but it’s kind of obvious. He blushes and rubs the back of his neck, watching as Keith pops the bulkhead open with one hand, no big deal, and disappears into the hallway. He leaves the door open and Shiro feels the cold air on his face after a moment. It feels nice.

He sets the water aside, knowing he doesn’t want it, and lies back down. Is it childish if he pulls the blanket all the way over his head? He doesn’t want to look at Keith ever again after this. How fucking embarrassing. 

But it’s too late, isn’t it?

_He loves you_.

His teeth chatter and his stomach hurts, his throat feels scratchy and he thinks there’s a migraine coming on, and he just wants it over with already.

He’s dozing again when Keith gets back. The sound of the door closing wakes him and he watches as Keith puts the wastebasket back, as he sits at the edge of the bed. He has a cloth in his hand and Shiro sees the way he hesitates, just a flinch, before he begins to dab at Shiro’s forehead. 

It’s so fucking embarrassing but it feels really good. 

“Thanks…” he says, and glances up at Keith, darting away just as quickly. 

Keith gives him a dry smile but doesn’t answer. He combs his fingers through Shiro’s hair, wipes around his mouth, touches his forehead again like he’s checking for temperature. If he’s still concerned he doesn’t say anything, just files the information away for himself. But he finishes it with a peck to the cheek and then discards the towel to get back in bed.

It must be late.

Keith doesn’t crowd him but comes a little closer this time. Shiro wishes they could hold hands. 

“Do you want to switch sides?” Keith asks. “If you get sick again?”

It’s probably a good idea but Shiro doesn’t have the energy. Besides, he hates the idea of Keith trying to climb over him to get to the cockpit. Hates the idea of being in the way while he tries to get ready in the morning. He probably doesn’t hate it more than another shared vomiting experience, but he doesn’t think his body has anything left to give at this point. It’s probably fine.

He shakes his head and mumbles no. 

“Let me know if you change your mind. It’s not a problem.” 

His skin hurts as he tries to settle in. Everything feels all wrong, like he’s a round peg in a square hole. He tries to roll on his side, to curl up the best he can without leaning on his stump. His body feels so awkward and unwieldy but he almost manages it, almost comfortable. 

Keith’s profile is backlit by the emergency lights. His big eyelashes and cute little nose. He’s breathing evenly but clearly not asleep. Shiro swallows, wondering if he has the courage to speak, wondering where the clone is to back him up. 

This whole situation has been humiliating but he doesn’t think it can get worse.

“Hey, Keith?”

“Yeah Shiro.” 

“Can…” his voice dries up. He clears his throat. “Do you think you could… touch me?”

Keith huffs a laugh and rolls on his side. It’s too dark to see him but they face each other. “ _Touch_ you?”

Shiro blushes. “Not like that. Like, I don’t know. When you were playing with my hair and stuff. Before.”

He can’t see Keith’s face but feels the stillness between them. Maybe he’s thinking about it. Shiro’s heart races as he waits for the denial.

“Yeah,” Keith finally says. He slides closer, and Shiro still feels hot with the fever but doesn’t mind it. It’s worth it, the way Keith anchors him here. He loops one of his legs over Shiro’s to lock them in together and then his hand is on Shiro’s face, thumb smoothing over his eyebrow, fingertips up in his hair, scratching his scalp. “You like that?”

“Y-yeah,” Shiro says. He closes his eyes, lets himself feel. There’s a healing quality to it, like the touch is drawing all the pain away, all the sickness, until he can only focus on what feels good. It keeps the room from spinning so much. Maybe he can sleep like this. 

He’s drifting, maybe only half in his body, but he can feel Keith’s hands tethering him to the real world. Keith won’t lose him. Keith never loses him.

“I’m really sorry, Keith,” he mumbles, not sure which one of him is saying it. Keith keeps touching him, petting him, squeezing. Even his body heat glowing against him in the darkness is enough. “I’m sorry for everything.”

It’s too hot where Keith is nuzzling against his shoulder, but he doesn’t want it to go away. “Stop saying sorry.”

Keith’s breathing is deep and even, maybe he’s sleeping, too, and Shiro doesn’t know who’s speaking, doesn’t know if Keith can hear them anymore, and when he says it anyway he thinks his words are mist.

_I’m so afraid I’ll disappear._

* * *

He dreams that they make it to Keith too late. 

It’s different from how it felt at the time, doing his best to push Black, to get to them in time. In the dream he’s there, in his body, with them both, standing there on the platform, but it’s too late.

There’s something overwhelming about the truth of the moment; too much to process. His mind is numb as it absorbs the facts, as it rearranges around the idea of this being the new truth. 

He’d felt the same way when he was abducted, and when he won his first match, and when he lost his arm. It’s a hollow space, that moment, and it feels like he’s participating as an observer. Numb, but somehow knowing there’s no rush, knowing that this will hurt forever.

The clone, though.

_You killed him_ , Shiro almost says, but stating as much seems unnecessary, smug, cruel. He stands apart from them, cold and dazed, and the clone is the one in pain.

“I killed him,” he’s saying, and crying so hard he can’t breathe. He’s pressing his palms to his eyes, rocking back and forth on his knees, choking for air and wheezing around the sobs. “I killed him I killed him—”

And it’s weird, the way his own grief takes a backseat to the stab of _empathy_ , knowing that it doesn’t even compare...

He wakes with Keith’s hands on his face.

“I’m right here,” he’s saying, voice firm, barely staying calm. “Shiro, it’s fine, I’m here.”

There are words in his throat, in his brain, but they won’t come out. He tries to sit up but Keith holds him there, keeps telling him to breathe, that he’s awake, that it’s okay, but it still hurts too much. His brain is still stuck where he left it, convinced that Keith is gone, that—

“Shiro,” Keith says. Shiro’s ears are ringing and he tries to focus on Keith’s face, to stay connected. Keith is trying, really. He looks like he’s about to lose it, but he’s trying. “It was a dream. I’m right here.”

He’s not sure if he feels more guilty or more embarrassed, wonders if he was talking in his sleep, exposing himself. 

_Your face,_ Shiro wants to say, and he reaches to touch, to trace the scar with his thumb. Keith clenches his jaw but doesn’t pull away, keeps holding Shiro in kind. There’s so much Shiro wants to say, but his heart is racing and he can’t think of the words.

“Breathe with me?” Keith says, and he takes Shiro by the wrist, tugging his hand away from the scar and placing it against his chest. He doesn’t count out loud but he holds Shiro there to feel how slow he’s going, making a show of it. 

_You killed him_.

Even as he calms down, his eyes are itchy like he’s been crying. In the moment, in the dream, the numbness had kept him at arm's length, would’ve allowed him to function through it, but it’s dissolving now. It’s stupid, it was a dream, but he can’t help how fragile it leaves him, not sure if it’s phantom heartache or simple relief that it wasn’t real. His head throbs and he keeps doing his best to match Keith’s pace; managing for a minute or two at a time before he loses the rhythm, shaking and gasping until Keith talks him down again. It goes on like this for a while. 

Keith is breathing evenly but Shiro can feel the way his heart races in his chest, and that floods the guilt through again. He tries harder to calm down, listening to his own shivery breaths, wondering again which will come first: getting better, or getting used to. Both seem insurmountable right now.

Over time Keith slowly collapses his weight against Shiro’s body, little by little. His heartbeat goes back to normal and he rests his head against Shiro’s chest, wraps an arm around his ribs. The weight feels good, feels like it’s holding everything in place, right where it should be. The pressure forces Shiro to measure the way he inhales, keeps him accountable. He wraps his hand around Keith’s bicep to anchor them together.

“What do they feel like for you?” Keith mumbles into Shiro’s shirt. 

It takes a concerted effort not to lose track of his breathing, to keep his cool. He can’t see that well in the dark but he thinks Keith’s eyes are closed, wonders how awake he is, if he knows what he’s saying, if he’s talking in his sleep. 

“What?”

“The panic attacks.”

He can’t help the hitch in his breath, the way it crests just for a moment, but it’s just a stumble. He swallows and tries to focus.

_Panic attacks_.

The idea echoes in his mind, like the clone is thinking it too. 

It seems obvious, out of the moment. The most obvious thing in the world. But hearing a word put to it is so nauseating. His head warps around the idea, trying to make room for it. If he didn’t know any better he’d think his frontal lobe was cramping. It makes him wonder if another nosebleed is coming on.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want,” Keith says after the silence gets awkward. He’s still cuddling in, words muffled against Shiro’s chest. “Just let me know what I can do to help.”

He pets the back of Keith’s head. “I don’t…. I don’t know. I just keep feeling like I’m not really here.”

Keith lifts his head and blinks down at Shiro, alert and serious for a moment. His arms squeeze tighter around Shiro’s torso. It makes him feel frozen there as Keith stares, not sure what he’s thinking, but there’s a split second before he looks away that Shiro is convinced Keith sees both of them, knows they’re both in there. It fades as quickly as it comes on, and then Keith is relaxing again, lying back down, resting his head on Shiro’s chest. This time, he speaks clearly, not muffled into Shiro’s clothes.

“I’ve been feeling like that, too.”

The hair rises on the back of Shiro’s neck, and he feels like such an asshole for not being more aware of what Keith’s going through. Maybe the abyss was a physical place, but…. they’d both been gone. 

He feels that hollowness again, like how he had in the dream. It’s his brain making space, carving out the idea that he’ll be dealing with this for the rest of his life. The guilt creeps through—not the way the clone has felt guilty this whole time, hiding in the back of his mind, but something present. He’s been too busy feeling sick and sorry for himself to have thought about what Keith is dealing with. It’s late now, the middle of the fucking night, but he promises himself to do better, to make it up to him. 

Keith clears his throat and brings Shiro back to the moment. “I was having panic attacks. While I was away.”

“Oh.”

“So… I don’t know. Let me know if there’s something you need me to do.”

Shiro strokes up and down Keith’s forearm. “Were they bad?”

“Yeah. Pretty bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what? That it happened at all, he supposes. That he hadn’t been there, that he hadn’t thought to ask until now. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Keith asks. 

“Yeah, of course.”

“This… thing used to happen. And we’d get these… visions…” he hesitates, and his fingers scratch lightly over Shiro’s shirt. “Like, we could see all these moments in time. Krolia saw it, too. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Okay?”

“But… I saw the future? A couple times. And I don’t really know what it means. But I know you’re gonna be okay.”

The words splinter through Shiro’s insides. His heart pounds and he thinks he can’t breathe again, but Keith’s weight on his chest keeps him in place. He rubs his eyes and counts as he inhales.

Keith shifts, scoots up to kiss the corner of Shiro’s jaw.

“You’ll be okay.”

* * *

The memories from last time are patchy; Keith helping him walk through the castle, helping him into the shower, unbuckling the borrowed space suit. Shiro remembers the clone crying when they had him stripped down to the prison garb still beneath, how he hadn’t had the strength to tear the fabric away, how he’d spiraled into a total meltdown until Keith had fucking saved him again. _Get it off get if off please I can’t do it anymore please get it off me_ he’d been begging, his whole body trembling. Keith had cut it away with his Blade in a matter of seconds, his face so stony and focused the whole time.

Remembering it kicks panic into his throat again and he can still feel how it had clung to his skin, how he couldn’t take another second. 

But it had just been that one lapse, that first night. And he’d calmed down, feeling silly and dramatic afterwards, maybe even humiliated. Keith would bring him food and spend the night, a solid presence that never pushed too hard, and the clone fit himself into those empty spaces, kept his shit together and hid how bad he was falling apart.

Shiro doesn’t have that now, even though instinct still begs for it. He settles there in the dark, unasleep, finally numb enough to breathe evenly. In the quiet he finally kinda feels okay.

The wolf is sitting upright, staring at him, and he’s not sure if he’s still feverish or if he can really feel what the wolf is thinking. It expands out of his mind for a moment, that everything is interconnected. Like he’s still got one foot in the door with Black, like Black can feel Keith, like Keith feels the wolf. It might have felt invasive before, but now it feels like a safety net.

So the memories are patchy but he remembers how they’d drawn away, how they’d hidden the worst parts. Lying here awake, with Keith sleeping against his body, he wonders if they’d been wrong to.

_He could have_ , Keith said before, like it was an accusation. Shiro’s face burns a little and he looks over the wolf again, and somehow knows he’s affirming the thought. The wolf’s eyes flare and his ears perk up. 

And Shiro knows because the wolf knows, because Keith knows, Black knows, the clone knows. It all clicks into place and he squeezes Keith’s hand where it’s laid over Shiro’s waist.

_He loves you_ , they all seem to say.

* * *

Shiro isn’t asleep, but Keith’s alarm brings the room into focus.

Keith is up instantly, slipping out of bed and grabbing his helmet off the nightstand. Shiro watches as he pats the wolf on the head, pushes his own hair out of his face, from sleeping to perfectly alert in the space of a second. Part of him wants to feel bad that maybe Keith isn’t sleeping so great, either, but a larger part of him throbs with pride of what a good leader he’s become. He’d dragged his feet on it the first time, but now…

He doesn’t get dressed but he crosses the room and cracks the bulkhead open, steps out into the hallway. He’s speaking into his comm but Shiro can’t make out what he’s saying. He squints against the light pouring in, confused, and it feels so nice when Keith comes back in and shuts the door. He drops his helmet back on the nightstand and climbs back into the bed, fusses with the blanket. He snuggles in close and kisses the side of Shiro’s neck.

“Aren’t you gonna go?” Shiro asks. 

“Thought you were asleep,” Keith says. He cuddles in closer. 

Shiro pushes up on his elbow. “Keith, come on. Go pilot.”

“It’s fine,” Keith plants his hand on the center of Shiro’s chest and pushes him back down. Hard. “They’ll be okay without me for one day, Black can manage without me.”

He goes to protest and Keith shushes him, then nudges at his shoulder until he rolls onto his side, facing the wall. Keith slides closer, loops his arm around Shiro’s chest and rests his hand over the swell of Shiro’s left pec. His leg hooks over Shiro’s and he exhales into the back of Shiro’s shirt, between his shoulder blades.

“Go back to sleep,” he mumbles, as if Shiro had been asleep in the first place.

And Shiro doesn’t… _think_ he imagines the press of Keith’s cock against his ass… 

He smirks and leans back into it, shifts his hips to make sure. It’s mostly a tease, because he doesn’t think he feels well enough for it right now, but after all the heaviness overnight it feels nice to act normal. 

_Normal…_

It’s weird, as he does it, remembering some things that aren’t really his to remember. When he’d died they weren’t really _sleeping_ together that often yet. Not full time, anyway. It didn’t start until the clone showed up.

The clone’s presence tingles in the back of his head as he remembers. Keith is a morning wood kind of guy. It wasn’t unusual to wake up like this. He feels the memories like they’re his own—wiggling his hips to goad Keith on in the morning, all fun and games until Keith was digging his claws into the clone’s hips and fucking him so hard he was screaming into his pillow to keep some semblance of privacy from the rest of the castle. 

“Behave,” Keith says into his back, and gives him a quick warning pinch on his nipple. “Go back to sleep.”

He closes his eyes and tries to follow the way Keith breathes. And maybe he’ll sleep this time. It’s weird, remembering these trysts, morning quickies before drills and waking up to his cock in Keith’s mouth. Whenever Keith took charge he was so feral, so focused on what he wanted. The clone had those moments more than Shiro; he wonders if it was one of those tiny differences that made them their own people. That, or being around the Blades had turned Keith into an animal. He wants to think about it harder, pinpoint the specifics, but as he unfolds the memories he wonders if he’s overstepping a boundary.

Is it different from how he’d felt territorial and a little violated by the idea that the clone shared his memories of his grandfather? ( _Their_ grandfather?) He leans into Keith’s embrace, reaches around to hold his elbow. Keith is real and _here_ , solid weight at his back, warm and tangible. It’s strange to think about the memories being real, too, that this body has been here all along. The presence in his mind is the bare truth of it, there whether he likes it or not, but he presses into the corners and wonders if the clone deserves the privacy.

The jealousy is there, somewhere, though. Pulsing quietly. And it’s uncomfortable but it makes sense. 

“Goes both ways, bud,” he mumbles out loud.

Keith pulls in tighter. “What’d you say?”

Shiro chuckles, blushes, squeezes Keith’s elbow. “Nothing.”

* * *

It’s mid-morning when Keith finally stirs. He rolls through all his muscle groups, not quite stretching, but flexing himself around Shiro’s body, rubbing his face along Shiro’s spine. 

“M’hungry,” he says, and squeezes in tight for a moment. Hard again, Shiro can feel, but he doesn’t tease this time. He’s too busy running through a mental checklist, and he realizes for the first time since being back that… maybe he’s hungry, too. He takes a moment to listen to his body and thinks he maybe feels okay. Keith shakes through a big yawn and scratches over Shiro’s belly for a moment, then finally untangles and sits up. “You wanna try to eat something?”

Shiro rubs his face as he sits up. It was probably only a couple hours of sleep, and he’s not sure he was even all the way asleep, but he feels more rested than he has in… forever. He sighs in relief.

“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.”

Keith grabs the parcel from yesterday off the nightstand and sits cross legged, drops it on the bed between them as Shiro does the same. He watches as Keith peels the lid back. Not too aggressive, just like he’d promised. Alien fruit and some approximation of crackers that Hunk had baked from the food goo. His stomach rumbles and Keith raises an eyebrow at him. He nods towards the side of the bed.

“Let me know if you want the bucket.”

Shiro takes one of the fruits and scoots back to lean against the wall, to put a little space between them. 

“I know you keep telling me to stop apologizing…” he says, and studies the fruit in his hand instead of looking at Keith’s face. “But, you know. I just appreciate it, I guess. That’s all I wanna say. I know you have better things to do and cleaning up after me isn’t all that sexy. So. Thanks, I guess.” 

Keith is staring, not answering. When Shiro finally has the courage to peek up at him it’s in time to watch the way he bites into one of the fruits. It squirts out over his chin and he wipes it with the back of his hand. 

“That’s not why I’m here,” he says, mouth full. “You know that, right?” 

Clone energy practically vibrates in the bottom of Shiro’s brain.

Shiro smiles. He tastes the fruit, then looks down at its exposed yellow flesh in his hand. There’s the sense again of normalcy, something easy, trying alien fruit and having this small moment to appreciate that they made it to space, even under the terrible circumstances. He chews it and looks up to see Keith watching, licking his own lips.

“It tastes like pine needles,” Shiros says, and laughs. “In a good way.”

Keith smirks. “I thought it tasted like a coconut.”

“Well, you’re an alien.”

“Guess so.”

They eat in silence, and the wolf begs for food, and Shiro eats slowly, just in case. Having food in his belly and a few hours of rest has him feeling way more human. He doesn’t push it too hard, just in case. A piece of fruit and a couple crackers and he takes a break to let it settle. Keith finishes the rest of it, sharing with the wolf and scratching his ears, calling him a good boy. The bond between them is so cute. It warms his heart even though he knows he’s missing a lot. When things are less crazy he’ll ask about it.

Eventually Keith stands, and he grabs the food carton and fusses with the blankets, straightens out the nightstand. He watches Shiro as he stretches, back popping, eyes narrowed and face hard to read. He bounces up and down on his toes a few times as he rolls his shoulders, then reaches to take Shiro’s hand.

“You wanna come take a shower with me?”

Shiro goes to grab Keith’s hand by reflex, only hesitates for a moment as he processes the question. Memories cut in like a strobe, there and then gone. _Last time._ Last time…

But this isn’t like last time.

Keith doesn’t quite coddle him the whole walk down the hallway, but he hovers, hand on the small of Shiro’s back. It could go either way, really; seems like something Keith would’ve done anyway, but Shiro isn’t completely recovered from feeling like a burden. He drags his fingertips idly along the wall as they walk, just to feel it, to stay present. 

There’s a weird sense of shame crawling over his skin as they step into the bathroom and he realizes he hasn’t showered yet. Not sure when the clone showered last before the handover. It makes the whole thing uncomfortable again, makes him feel exposed in some way, like he’s a burden, but Keith acts like it’s no big deal. Of course. He’s been doing his best not to make it a big deal. 

They brush their teeth together first, laughing and elbowing each other out of the way for space in front of the sink, and then Keith is digging through a box in the corner. It looks like stuff from Shiro’s bathroom in the castle; a hairbrush, a bottle of pills, a razor. He takes the razor and a bottle of shaving cream and stands back up, reaches into the shower to turn the water on. He leaves the supplies on the shelf built into the shower wall, then turns to Shiro.

The way Keith strips his clothes off is so perfunctory, simple, unashamed. It’s the first time Shiro has seen the aftermath; the bruises are starting to heal, but they’re still obvious. Shiro’s mind floods with possible responses and his mind cycles through frantically, not sure which one to land on. _Jesus Christ_ or _I’m so sorry_ or _Does it hurt?_ The words don’t come. Keith cocks his eyebrow.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he says. He stands in the middle of the room as it fills with steam, his face flat and calm as he waits for Shiro to chill. And Shiro… blushes, and cringes, fussing with the hem of his shirt to undress and realizing he’s not sure how to.

Keith reaches for him, like it’s an instinct, but stops himself, curls his fingers into a fist. He chews on his lip for a second.

“Um, do you want help?”

It feels stupid to want to recoil the way he does, as if they’ve never been in this place before. It’s a weird crossroads; knowing he can figure it out on his own, even if it takes a minute or looks silly. Is that better than accepting the help? He maybe takes too long to answer.

“I don’t want to like, baby you,” Keith says, and holds his hands up in a peace gesture. “I know you’ll get the hang of it. But. Yeah.”

His heart flutters. “Okay. Yeah.”

He watches the floor as Keith comes closer, doing his best to relax and cooperate as Keith helps him undress. He tosses Shiro’s clothes on top of his own and then drags him into the water by his wrist like it’s no big deal, almost desperate for things to feel normal. 

The water feels nice on his back. It makes chills rise up all over his body and he moans a little as he lets it soak in. Keith laughs under his breath and they both just enjoy it for a few minutes. 

There’s been a heaviness in his body the last couple days and he’s gone back and forth with it. All the pain and illness has felt worth it in the end, knowing he’s back, that he’s okay, that he’s alive. But this is the first time feeling so unburdened, actually feeling _good_. He leans down to press his forehead to Keith’s, allows himself to relax, to live in this moment. To stay here for a minute. The way the heat and steam envelope him finally makes him feel like he’s home.

Keith is the one that moves first, back to business. He squirts soap into Shiro’s hand, then his own, and steps back to bathe himself. Shiro can handle this much on his own, which restores a small piece of his ego. It relieves the tension, makes him smile. He shares the shampoo a bit later, too, and the way he lathers it into his own hair with both hands is oddly chaotic, while also being oddly cute. He squints at Shiro as the bubbles drip down into his face, silent, but he starts grinning like he’s trying not to laugh.

“What?” Shiro asks.

Keith wipes the bubbles out his eyes. “Would you trust me to shave you?”

It’s an uncomfortably honest question that crushes in on an otherwise relaxed moment. Keith must see Shiro’s hesitance, though. He puts his hand on Shiro’s chest.

“I’m not asking because I think you need help,” he amends. “I just, kinda want to. Is that weird?”

Shiro forces a smile. “Really weird.”

“Well, can I?”

“… sure?”

Keith rises on his toes to kiss him on the mouth, hand still planted on Shiro’s chest. It catches Shiro by surprise but he goes with it, touches Keith’s ribs to ground himself. He’s not looking but he can feel the welt beneath his hand, warm and raised from his skin, and it feels like hovering at the edge, like he can tip over towards the guilt if he thinks about it too much, but Keith bites at his bottom lip and the thoughts clear away. It makes Shiro laugh under his breath—how is he supposed to feel sorry for himself with Keith here like this?

Fingernails scratch through Shiro’s stubble as they kiss. It coaxes Shiro to relax, to melt into it. He breathes in the steam after Keith pulls away, He drags his teeth across Shiro’s chin.

“I mean, I do like it,” he says. He kisses again and licks into Shiro’s mouth. “But I figured you’d wanna feel like yourself.” 

“Yeah… something like that.”

Keith grabs the shaving gel and lathers it between his hands. The scent of it in the steam makes Shiro dizzy for a moment, gives him a weird feeling in his stomach. It’s so vividly familiar, and even though the clone had used it maybe just a week ago, Shiro himself hasn’t in…

He doesn’t know how long. He couldn’t tell while he was dead, and now…

The careful way Keith lathers it onto his face snaps him back into the present. He inhales, deep and steady, trying to calm himself but also absorbing the fragrance again. Inhaling the steam. It vibrates all over his body but he thinks he’ll be okay.

Keith’s touch is so gentle. His thumb traces Shiro’s philtrum, so slow and intense that Shiro hears the brush of the stubble over the rush of water. He feels exposed again, like this started out of silliness but turned into something important. 

It’s been days now of feeling weak and useless, embarrassed and burdensome. But the careful way Keith begins to move the blade isn’t out of pity. Just love. All the humor leaves his face as he concentrates, like it’s the most important task in the world. 

And _trust_. What a concept. Shiro almost laughs but forces himself not to, for the sake of not moving his face too much. He breathes, he watches. With their faces so close, the intimacy is almost stifling.

“I missed you, you know,” Keith mumbles. He holds the razor under the water for a moment to rinse it off, and touches the newly-bare space on Shiro’s skin to hold him in place. The hypersensitivity of it makes him shudder.

“Yeah,” he says, and waits for Keith to run through another stroke before he speaks again. “You too.”

Their eyes meet and it kicks him in the chest. It’s too much, he thinks, and not just for himself. He sees the shadows pass through Keith’s face, sees how he steels himself against it. At least they’re both on the same page about it, he figures. Take it a step at a time. 

Keith doesn’t say anything after that. He finishes up and puts the razor away, uses his hands to rub over Shiro’s jaw. He shivers from the sensation of it, ready to burst at the seams as Keith kisses him on the cheek. 

It seems chaste, innocent enough at first, until he kisses the side of Shiro’s neck, then his shoulder. His calloused fingertips sweep up and down Shiro’s sides and the faintest bit of pressure has Shiro stepping back until he’s leaning against the shower wall. Teeth graze across Shiro’s clavicle, and then Keith is sinking down, settling on his knees.

“Wait, I—oh—” Shiro flexes his fingers, not sure what to do, if he should cover his face or hold the wall or touch Keith’s hair. Keith rubs his hands up and down Shiro’s thighs, kneading like a cat as he leans forward to lick at the head of Shiro’s cock. Shiro wants to protest, nervous about, guilty, not sure what to think, but all the thoughts fade out of his mind as Keith begins to suck. He holds the shaft with one hand, stroking him until he’s fully hard, and then pulls away to look up.

“This okay?” he asks. His lips drag across Shiro’s cockhead as he speaks.

“Yeah, it’s—thanks,” Shiro says. And that part does make him cover his face. He hears Keith chuckling and feels the warm breath against his skin, and then Keith is getting back to it.

It’s hard to make sense of time; he’s not sure when the clone was with Keith last. He remembers the way it usually went; Keith back for a day or two between Blade missions, or coordinating with the castle as a quick stop to share resources. He could be a little stiff with the others, feeling the tension of having left the team, but there was so much warmth and hunger once they were alone together. Shiro remembers he fucked Keith the morning he died and doesn’t know how long ago that was, either.

Time will be fucked up for Keith, too, he realizes. For Keith it’s been years. 

_Years_.

He can’t dwell on it, though, not with Keith working him over like this. He finally drops his hand to Keith’s head, runs his fingers through the wet hair, watches the last of the lather rinsing away. 

It’s been a long time. 

Beneath him, Keith shifts into a half crouch, one knee still on the floor as he starts to jerk off. It’s quick and frantic and he knows neither of them will last like this.

The pleasure feels surreal and he wants to fight it, or something inside wants him to fight it. There’s no sickness right now, no pain, but there’s this instinct that he isn’t allowed to enjoy this body yet. It takes all of his energy to breathe, to imagine the chakras, to feel the energy radiating from the source. He closes his eyes and tries to focus on what feels good, the way it pulses inside, how it makes his nerves sing.

He opens his eyes in time to watch Keith during the last seconds, sees the way his shoulders tense as he speeds up in touching himself. He moans around Shiro’s cock as he comes all over the shower floor, and Shiro squeezes around Keith’s hair as he follows. 

Before he died he would’ve found it perverse, the way Keith swallows it down, the way he sucks Shiro through it and licks his lips when he’s done. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and blinks up through the shower water. It would’ve seemed filthy before, sexy and hot and nothing else.

Maybe his head is still scrambled or something. It still does feel sexy and hot, but it’s more than that. His heart is pounding but for the first time since he’s been back, it isn’t in fear. Not in illness. His whole body is full of life and light.

Keith shakes off his other hand and swishes it in the water on the floor to get the cum off. He stands and rinses his hair one more time, then shuts the shower off. He grabs a towel and starts to dry off, but Shiro grabs him by the arm to get his attention.

“Hey,” Shiro says, with a little tug, and Keith turns to look at him. His skin is so pink and bright from the heat, eyes alight. Shiro cups his face, runs his thumb up and down the scar. “I’m sorry.”

He thinks the Keith he remembers would’ve squirmed away, hid his face, blushed red and said something snarky to deflect. But he’s so much older now. Instead, he gives Shiro a soft smile and nods, turns to kiss the palm of his hand. 

And that’s it. He keeps toweling off and knots the towel around his waist. Shiro manages his own one-handed, careful not to move too fast as they walk back to keep it from falling open. The air in the hallway feels too cold but his whole body is still reverberating from the orgasm and the contrast feels like something clicking into place, snapping him into his body. It also makes the bed feel so welcoming once they’re back.

Things feel different between them, paces ahead of where they were even just last night. The sense of unease is gone from Keith’s posture, from his face. Shiro’s lost some of the shame. He stands in the doorway and stares at the room for a moment before coming inside; even just yesterday it had felt like a confinement, an emblem of being unwell, but some of the stigma is lifted. He actually wants to get back into bed, to feel the pleasure of _sleep_.

“So I’m gonna go check on the guys,” Keith says, his back to Shiro as he rummages through one of the cases. “Run some drills and stuff.”

Shiro pulls the door shut and drops the towel on the floor, climbs into bed nude. His body sings in comfort. The blankets are so soft on his skin. He wraps himself up and curls on his side to watch Keith dress. Weird how it’s been a long time, and not long at all, his timelines full of sludge as he tries to remember. Doesn’t matter though, not really. The sound of the armor snapping into place is so familiar, so natural. It flashes in the base of his skull.

“Get some sleep, yeah?” he says as he finishes up, and comes over to the bed. Shiro nods up at him and Keith smiles. He bends to kiss Shiro on the cheek, then fusses with the blankets.

Shiro laughs. “Are you tucking me in?”

Keith stares at him in complete deadpan for a moment, then tussles his hair. His voice is gentle and sweet. “Fuck you.”

_He loves us_.

* * *

The dream is more of a memory this time. He knows he’s dreaming, that it’s somehow playing on a loop in the back of his brain, but it feels so _real_.

He’s in the garden, but there’s context this time. He got in trouble at school that day for fighting with another boy. The boy had been teasing him about his new bracelet, the one they gave him at the hospital. His grandfather is with him, lecturing him, and Shiro is too busy fussing with the bracelet to really pay attention. He kind of hates it.

His grandpa isn’t mad, which makes Shiro feel worse. He’s being too nice about it, like he’s more disappointed than anything else. He’s sweeping off one of the flagstones and telling Shiro all about this stuff he learned online today, on the forum for families like theirs. He puts towels down and tells Shiro to sit.

Shiro has returned to this memory a lot throughout his life. Something about that afternoon had really broken him open, one of those cornerstones of childhood ending. Seeing his grandfather as a real person, flawed and confused, doing his best. Somehow it shattered some of Shiro’s childlike reverence.

New respect grew, though. It became the difference between seeing his grandfather as some omnipotent being to seeing him as a regular guy doing everything he could. It contextualized the love, made him feel so safe.

They sat together on the towels and his grandfather had a tablet in his lap, reading the instructions out loud. How to adjust their posture, how to breathe in and out. He keeps stopping to talk in between instructions, and even as a child Shiro remembers he laughed a little, knowing that they were supposed to be quiet and focused.

In his dream, he shuts his eyes and remembers everything, every detail. 

“I’m doing the best I can, Takashi,” his grandfather says. “You have so much… rage, and I don’t know what to do to help you right now.”

Shiro knows that in real life, he’d kept his eyes closed the whole time. The memory of his grandfather’s voice is so vivid, and he always remembers how he couldn’t see, that it was just darkness and calm and his grandpa’s voice. Wavering and uncertain at times, trying to do the right thing.

But in the dream, he wants to see. 

It grounds him into his body, like stepping into another world. He feels the towel beneath him and the hard flagstone. He thinks, originally, his hands had been folded in his lap, but this time he’s reaching to the side, holding onto someone else. Their knees are touching and he feels the warmth.

Grandpa is still there, across from them, watching the tablet in his lap with no concern in the world that there’s an extra child now. Does he not see them? Or is it normal, in this world? 

Shiro turns to look at him.

It’s like seeing a twin, a mirror. Exactly how he’d looked at seven years old. They stare at each other, both of them startled. He seems so innocent like this, so sweet, worth protecting. Shiro squeezes his hand and reminds himself it’s just a dream.

“How do you know?” his twin whispers. “What if it’s not a dream?”

The illusion of it flutters in his periphery, threatening to fall away. His heart races. This used to happen in Black sometimes, when he was dead. Entire worlds that he could imagine, only to be plunged back into the void. He tries to focus on his breathing, to keep from losing it, doesn’t want to cry and scream like a baby.

“We can’t be in Black,” his twin says. 

“Shush,” Grandpa scolds, without looking at them, still reading. “We’re having quiet time.”

“Sorry,” they both say in unison.

The twin’s eyes dart back and forth between Grandpa and Shiro, and finally he leans in closer to whisper even lower. “We’re not in Black. I was never with you there.”

“Face each other now, and hold hands,” Grandpa says, and they both look at him. Somehow, Shiro knows they’re each adjusting to each other, trying to re-form this memory. Grandpa gives them the same smile, the warm one that Shiro misses so much, and nothing is unusual here. He isn’t surprised to see two children and Shiro knows he loves them both.

They shift, as they’re told, sitting cross-legged and close enough for their knees to touch. They take each other’s hands and sit with the awkwardness for a moment, studying each other’s faces as Grandpa goes back to the tablet and continues to read random slices of advice. It’s all the same bits Shiro remembers, that have been bouncing around in his head for years. Something tells him that his twin feels the same, in his own way. His own version, anyway. 

“What if it’s not a dream…” Shiro repeats. He tilts his head as he stares at this boy. 

If it’s not a dream… maybe that’s not so bad.

“You’re me,” he whispers.

His twin squeezes his hands, his eyes flash with life. “No, I’m me.”

Grandpa is midway through his weird mantra that he found online—one Shiro’s remembered and has used over and over—when Shiro darts forward, scrambles on his knees to hug his twin around the neck. He almost loses his balance, but hugs Shiro back, clutches tight, mirrors the energy he’s receiving.

The first time, there had been no one else, no brother to embrace, and Shiro hadn’t been scolded for breaking concentration. He wonders if Grandpa will get mad, but instead just hears his gentle, forgiving laugh.

He crushes in, keeps breathing, wishing they could squeeze together until they’re one person again.

* * *

For the first time since this began, it doesn’t hurt.

He knows he’s awake but doesn’t open his eyes. Even the serenity doesn’t quell the fear—he worries that if he moves it will all come back. He listens for the ambient hum of Black’s engine, waits on the occasional wisp of turbulence. The blankets are so soft.

It’s okay to just stay here for a moment. 

Sleep is coming on again, drawing pieces of himself away, little by little, like disappearing, and it’s peaceful until it isn’t. Right on the cusp and he can’t feel his body, like how it had felt when he was dead.

He gasps and sits up, ears ringing. It takes a moment to get his bearings; the anxiety of it has him kinda out of sorts but he doesn’t feel as sick as before, doesn’t think he’ll throw up or anything. That seems like progress. He holds his hand out to touch the wall, to feel it, cool metal against his skin, tangible. It begins to settle his nerves.

_Breathe into the chakras_.

It helps. It’s heavy in his chest, but not the way it’s felt since he’s been back. Not the way his body had felt heavy and wrong, more like the heaviness of grief. It blooms through his body and he lies back down, stares up at the ceiling.

The door creaks open and Keith steps in, wearing his armor and with his helmet under his arm.

“Hey, you’re awake,” he says. He cranks the door closed and puts his helmet down, comes over to the edge of the bed. He tugs one of his gloves off and touches Shiro’s forehead with the backs of his knuckles. Shiro blushes and ducks away. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” Shiro mumbles. He peeks back up at Keith and watches how he moves around the room as he undresses. The shoulders come off first, then the chest piece, and Shiro likes the way it makes his hips look. The undersuit clings to him, leaves nothing to the imagination. Shiro rolls onto his side, doesn’t hide the way he’s watching.

Keith smirks and leans against one of the storage cases to pull the boots off. 

“You’re staring,” he chides. He drops the boots and unhooks his belt, stands back up to snap the leg armor off. 

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in a really long time,” Shiro says. Keith rolls his eyes but he’s still smiling. He looks away as he starts to unzip the body suit. “It’s not because I was gone. I mean. You were gone, too.”

“I was.”

“You’re kinda different.”

“Shiro, please,” Keith chuckles and tosses the suit and his boxers into the corner. He stretches and cracks his neck, then turns to Shiro. Their eyes meet, watching each other for a moment. Keith forces a nervous smile, and even in the dim light Shiro can tell he’s blushing. He laughs under his breath and shakes his head before finally coming across the room to climb into bed.

Shiro is still nude from the shower earlier, his skin burning a little from the body heat inside the blankets. Keith feels good against him as he slots himself into Shiro’s side. He presses his hand to Shiro’s forehead, like he’s checking on the fever, but doesn’t comment. Must be okay now. He cuddles in and nuzzles against Shiro’s throat. 

They stay quiet for a while, but the silence is so charged. The energy is humming beneath both of them, like they’re being too polite to act on it. The way Keith’s mouth is pressed to the side of Shiro’s neck seems innocent enough at first, but he starts squirming, testing the waters. It starts with a small kiss, and when Shiro doesn’t stop him, another, and another. He sucks at the pulse point beneath Shiro’s jaw and runs a hand across his abs.

It’s been a weird few days, and he’s been doing his best to integrate into his new body, but it slips for a moment. It’s like he’s not in the driver seat anymore, like he’s floating just under the surface as their hand reaches up to touch Keith’s face, as their thumb strokes up and down along the scar. Their heart is pounding, anxiety pulsing up through the arousal. Shiro tries to take control back and it feels like phantom pain. It seizes through his head as Keith looks up, leans back enough that they can see into each other’s faces. His eyes are stormy and Shiro wonders if the burn still hurts.

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I couldn’t stop,” the clone whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

Keith pushes up and stares down at them. 

“Fuck does that mean?”

A shock of cold runs over him, just a flash, quick stab of insecurity and then the clone is gone, hiding again. Shiro blinks a few times, disoriented, as he feels the control again.

“I—“ he draws his hand away from Keith’s face, runs it through his own hair. “Sorry, I… think we’re both in here.”

The clone’s presence squeezes at the base of his skull.

Keith’s eyebrows come together as he stares down, confused.

The mark on his face is still so angry and red. Shiro’s eyes sting and his vision goes blurry.

“The… my clone. He feels bad,” he says, voice cracking. Keith tries to hide the shock that breaks over his face, covering it quickly enough as leans back a little bit, putting some space between them. The clone recoils inside, like he’s afraid. Restless. It twists anxiety in Shiro’s chest. “I’ve been feeling like this body doesn’t want to be lived in… I don’t know how to explain. There’s so much guilt. It’s been making me sick.”

Keith frowns for a moment, then sits up. He swings his leg over Shiro’s body to straddle him. They’re both nude but it doesn’t feel sexual; just makes Shiro feel small. Keith looks huge, looming over him like this, half his face in shadow. 

“Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t want to live in it.”

He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Eyes still blurry as he rubs his hand up and down Keith’s thigh where it cages in his body. Again, not feeling sexual but helping him stay connected. Feeling Keith’s weight and warmth is helping.

“You didn’t—“ his voice catches in his throat and he squeezes Keith’s leg. “You didn’t see me for two years and then I try to kill you.”

Keith’s face is blank but he shrugs. “Well, you didn’t. Neither of you did.”

His frame seems rigid, jaw clenched. It’s strained, like he doesn’t want to talk about it, but there’s a coolness to the way it passes through him, like it’s just another fucking thing that’s happened. The Adventures of Voltron. It gives Shiro the chills.

A moment passes in silence, and then Keith begins to relax. His weight crushes down across Shiro’s hips and he lays his hand down where Shiro is holding his leg. He watches Shiro’s face, but it’s clear that he isn’t going to speak. Just wants to wait, to listen.

Shiro feels it expanding inside, knows if he says it he’ll start to cry, but there’s nowhere else to go. His breath hiccups on the way in and then it all falls apart.

“I tried to kill you,” he says, and the panic cuts through the way it had in the dreams, in the memories. They’re not his memories but he feels them just the same, remembers that feeling of being in a fog, unable to stop it. Forced to participate and not knowing how to break free. The words tumble out in a mess of sobs. “I can’t believe you still saved me.”

“Fuck,” Keith says. His thighs press tight into Shiro’s sides. “Shiro. Please.”

Shiro pulls his hand out from under Keith’s to cover his face, the urge tingling in his right hand, as well. It feels weird and gross, too raw. As bad as puking in front of him. The slight semblance of privacy makes another wave roll through. He can’t catch his breath. 

“Oh, oh,” Keith’s voice is softer as the crying gets worse. He bends forward, kisses Shiro’s forehead, his cheek, the corner of his scar. “Shiro, baby. It’s okay, I’m here. We’re both here.” He moves Shiro’s hand, so gently. His thumbs wipe the tears away and he alternates stroking Shiro with the backs of his knuckles and petting his hair. It’s so soft, soothing. 

The hysteria coasts to a stop, only for a moment, long enough to sniffle and curl his hand around Keith’s bicep. Keith leans in further, their chests pressed together. And he’s okay until he can smell Keith’s hair. It’s like claws inside his ribs, tearing through him, and his voice is so shaky, strangled by it.

“Thank you,” he manages, and hugs Keith, tight, presses them together. It makes it harder to breathe but he needs the weight, the reality, sticky warm and absolute. Words spill out after that; he must sound like a crazy person but he can’t stop. “Thank you thank you thank you. You didn’t have to. Thank you.”

“Didn’t have to what?”

“Save me,” Shiro says. Keith props himself back up as much as he can, still caged into Shiro’s embrace, but he leans on his elbows so they can see each other. “You didn’t have to.”

“I—“ Keith cuts himself off, presses his mouth into a tight line. Tilts his head. “I did. I did have to.”

They stare at each other in the quiet, Keith continuing to pet him. There’s something hypnotic about it, helping him calm down. Something a little too intense, too intimate as they watch each other. It’s like falling, like they’re hanging over the edge again, but the pull between them is so strong. 

For the past two days he’s felt so squeamish, too vulnerable. Even when the clone came back it had been too much. But they’re past that now, there’s nothing left. It’s both terrifying and tranquilizing. He was vulnerable, but Keith caught him.

_He loves us,_ Shiro wants to tell the clone. He thinks it, anyway, hopes it will click into place. Because Keith is staring and somehow Shiro knows that he sees them both. Both of him, all of him. Confusing to explain how he knows, but does. And it floods through his head, his chest, connected to something primal. He _knows._

Black knows it, too.

She rumbles in his spine, affirming, and Keith must feel it, too. He nods and bends forward, kisses Shiro on the mouth. Soft and sweet, _loving_. Quiet balm to all that’s happened.

“Relax,” Keith whispers when he pulls away. He kisses Shiro’s temple and breathes next to his ear. “I’m here with you.”

It almost makes Shiro laugh, but he obeys. Tries to slow down, listens to the way his heart beats. There’s been a weird, almost tactile sense of jealousy when he’s looked through the clone’s memories of Keith, all the things Shiro missed out on, but he feels jealous to have missed Keith’s time away, too. The strength in him now, this maturity, reverberates down to Shiro’s bones. He’s so fascinated by it, wonders what it took to get here.

He sweeps his hand across Keith’s back, up and down over his ribs, feels out the lines of scars. Keith is doing the same, petting softly over Shiro’s ribs. His hands drift upwards, thumbs pressing into Shiro’s clavicles, then curling over to massage his traps. Shiro moans without meaning to, melting against the bed.

Pleasure radiates out from Keith’s touch. Goosebumps rise on the back of his neck and he shifts, tries to take some of the pressure away from where Keith is pinning him to the bed. Even on the heels of a crying jag, his body feels so hyper-sensitive, so starved for physical contact. But he doesn’t want it to feel so obvious, hopes Keith won’t notice where it’s twitching against the inside of his thigh. 

If he notices, he’s kind enough not to tease. He keeps massaging Shiro’s shoulders, kissing gently between breaths. It feels so good on his right side, where his nerves are still confused about losing another arm.  There’s the same tingling, but Keith’s touch seems to blend it outward, make it feel okay. He squeezes around Keith’s waist, hooks his thumb into Keith’s hipbone. In the same way he used to try to feel his body disappear, this time he tries to stay, to feel the heat, the weight, the bliss. 

Keith kisses him on the mouth again, lingering this time. He continues to massage Shiro’s shoulder with one hand, the other rising to card through his hair. His nails drag in delicate lines across Shiro’s scalp, scratch behind his ears. Over and over. He kisses Shiro’s jaw, then his throat, sucks over his skin. After a time, his legs open more, lowering him down even further, bringing them closer. Shiro doesn’t necessarily notice when Keith stops playing with his hair, too focused on his mouth, the way Keith alternates between kissing him and sucking at the side of his neck, never hears the click of the bottle. None of it registers until Keith is letting out a tiny whimper, moaning by Shiro’s ear. He can’t see what Keith is doing, except that his posture makes it obvious.

“Shit, Keith—” all the blood rushes to his cock, despite everything. He shifts like he can hide it again, but Keith stays with it, grinds down against him. 

It’s familiar, really, even if it’s been a long time. The memories from while he was gone sort of meet him halfway, fill in a space he didn’t know he’d missed. He understands Keith’s determination, the edge of his desperation, but knows that going this slowly took practice. It’s like everything else he’s been noticing, this gap in his maturity. This tenderness was built while he was away. 

“We okay?” Keith asks. He bites softly at Shiro’s ear lobe, starting to rock on his own fingers. His cock is hard, dragging back and forth against Shiro’s abs. 

“Yeah,” Shiro chokes out. He tilts his head to kiss Keith, to suck on his bottom lip, to taste him. The click of the bottle is loud this time, now that he’s paying attention. Loud and sharp and it shoots a primal instinct through his body, hard wired Pavlovian response. He almost mourns it when Keith sits up and he loses the warmth, but he watches, helpless, as Keith pours the lube into his other hand and lays in a few luxuriating strokes to Shiro’s cock. He twists his hand, palm rubs a circle around Shiro’s head. It makes him arch his back, hissing. “You’re gonna kill me.”

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” Keith chuckles, grinning as he lines himself up. They breathe around it in silence as he lowers himself down, taking a moment to adjust, to rock his hips. So fuckin tight. Shiro swears and digs his nails into Keith’s hip.

“I thought it was too—” he gasps as Keith bottoms out “—soon for jokes about my demise.”

Keith laughs, raspy and quick, and Shiro feels the way it pulses through his body. His head falls back to stare at the ceiling and he plants one of his hands on Shiro’s ribs, pressing hard as he balances. “Babe, please stop talking.”

Even with the other memories filling in the blanks, it suddenly feels like way too long since they’ve done this. A couple months, he thinks, since Keith had stopped by and checked in. It’s this same body that Keith had touched, that he’d taken into his own. Hadn’t been this gentle, though. It makes Shiro grin, and he almost laughs but it gets caught up in a moan, instead. And that suits him fine, really, because he’s not sure he wants to explain. Keith doesn’t notice, though. He’s rolling his hips in a circle, taking what he needs, not even looking.

They’ve only gone this slow a few times, Shiro thinks. Maybe it was too awkward before, or unnecessary. Maybe being stuck out in space made them more adventurous or something, who knows. But this is nice, too. Keith is completely in control and he’s so calm, patient. It’s nice. No sense of urgency, just enjoying each other.

Shiro plants his feet flat on the mattress for leverage, moving softly under Keith’s control but not pushing. He watches how Keith moves. One hand reaches back and latches onto Shiro’s thigh, clamping down for balance and the other pets up his own chest, pinches at his own nipple, traces upwards to rub at his neck. He isn’t loud, but the sounds are steady, low, purely need. 

When he opens his eyes they’re glowing a dull yellow. _That’s the Keith I remember_. Shiro’s heart pounds and he freezes, not sure how he’s supposed to feel. Keith’s pupil’s are slits, _inhuman_ , and it should be hard to read but Shiro feels so fucking _seen_. The way their gazes lock onto each other opens a channel between them, pinning him in place and aching through the bottom of his brain. 

They’ve both been somewhere beyond and Shiro has a feeling that its presence will echo between them for a long time.

Keith folds forward to kiss Shiro again. It creates a full loop of sensation, of connection. He’s still moving slowly, fluid, lazy circles of his hips, quiet sounds humming against Shiro’s lips. His cock drags up and down Shiro’s abs, warm and dripping. He brings his hands up to play with Shiro’s hair again, to rub his ears. 

“Fuck,” Shiro breathes. 

“Good?” 

“So good,” he holds on to Keith’s hip, overwhelmed. “You feel so good, baby.”

Keith bites at the edge of Shiro’s jaw and it makes him shudder, skin still sensitive from the fresh shave, and a pathetic noise tumbles from his throat.

“You’re gonna make me come,” he mumbles. Keith licks across his chin. 

“Yeah?”

“Fuck, yeah.”

“Not before I do,” he whispers.

He sits back up, moving faster now, almost aggressive as he focuses on his own pleasure. One hand squeezes at his nipple as the other jerks himself off. Low light but his lips are still glossy and swollen, and Shiro can see his pointy teeth. 

Keith’s body works as an anchor as Shiro digs into the meat of his thigh, using him for balance to pull himself up. He looks startled as Shiro sits up, as it changes the angle. Their chests press together and Keith’s knuckles dig into Shiro’s abs as he jerks off. His free hand uses Shiro’s shoulder for leverage. 

It feels powerful, this shift. Shiro can’t explain why, doesn’t think he’ll try to. The energy surges in his body and he bites into Keith’s neck, reveling in the push-pull of force between them.

And Keith said he wanted to go first, but Shiro knows he’ll be right behind. They both cry out as Keith’s body begins to seize and he paints Shiro’s belly with thick ropes of cum. Their bodies crash together, smear it between them and make a mess. 

Shiro’s vision is hazy as he closes in, but he still studies the lines of Keith’s face. Even in the heat of the moment, where they’re probably their most sweaty and unflattering, Shiro can’t help thinking that Keith is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. 

It makes him choke on a quick half-laugh, feeling stupid and moony even through the chaos of all of it. But even as he’s thinking it he’s tipping over the edge, and thankfully the slate gets wiped clean.

He hasn’t been hungry in days, hadn’t been horny either, had felt too strangled by discomfort, but there’s a quiet twenty seconds where his mind is completely empty. It feels like his brain resetting. He knows this feeling well, though he isn’t thinking of it yet—it used to be this way after flare ups, feeling refreshed and promising to never take his health for granted again. It’s so nice that nothing hurts for a few minutes.

They curl into each other, panting as he leans into Keith’s neck, mouths at his collarbone. Keith’s voice threads into his own heavy breathing; little whimpers coming out on each exhale as he comes down. 

“Shit,” Keith says. He slumps against Shiro’s body, unmoving aside from the heaving of his chest. They breathe in tandem, bodies still communicating somehow, rolling against each other. 

His heart thuds and he feels the way it courses through his body, how it echoes through his pulse points. Hears the blood in his ears. It’s not scary, the way it’s been for a long time now. Reassuring, instead. _You’re here, you’re here, you’re here,_ the rhythm tells him. _Alive alive alive._

Keith’s body is working in that same rhythm, Shiro can feel it thrumming beneath his skin. And he can’t _hear_ Keith’s heartbeat, not quite, but feels it nonetheless. Through Black, maybe. He can’t explain. Even coming down off the bliss of nothingness, there’s the transition where his whole world is narrowed down just to Keith. 

There’s a dual reflection in his mind; their first and last times, the experiences at odds with each other somehow. They feel like a closed loop, and for the first time since he got back it feels like he and the clone are really sharing. Their memories blend seamlessly, no resentment between them anymore, both grateful for the way they complete each other. 

He runs his hand through Keith’s hair, holds him by the back of the head. Keith shudders with an aftershock, his eyes hazy as Shiro pulls back to see him. 

This is progress somehow, too. Keith hadn’t even wanted to look at him their first time, had begged Shiro to flip him over so it wouldn’t be weird. 

Since he’s been back it’s felt like there’s a lot to say, a lot to explain, things to apologize for. He’s felt out of sorts and struggling to reconcile both halves of himself, working in opposition. But here, inches from Keith’s face and truly _seeing_ each other, it doesn’t seem so important. 

Could be the calm of the orgasm talking, he realizes. But something tells him they understand each other, that it’s okay. Keith gets it. 

Keith gets it because Black gets it. 

It throbs in Shiro’s head, but doesn’t hurt this time. Just pulses there, like the thoughts are too big for one person. 

But that’s okay. Keith sighs in exhaustion and leftover pleasure and Shiro kisses him again. It’s okay if it’s too big for one person. Shiro knows they can share.

When he pulls away, and looks at him once more, Keith’s eyes start to get glassy. They’re calming back down, less yellow now, pupils back to normal. He pinches the bridge of his nose and his face crumbles for a quick second before he covers it up. 

“Keith—“

He shakes his head and lifts himself from Shiro’s body, hiding his face as he puts distance between them. He sits at the corner of the bed, covering his eyes with one hand.

Shiro begins to reach for him but stops himself, decides to give him space. It aches inside as he watches the shake of Keith’s shoulders, but it’s over before he can even respond. Just a quick little thing, quick release of the pressure valve. He sniffles and stands up, wipes his face with his forearm. His eyes are bloodshot when he turns back to look at Shiro and he forces out a quiet laugh.

“Sorry, that was gross,” he says, and shrugs like everything is fine. He moves around the room, wipes his body with a t-shirt and tosses it to Shiro to do the same. Pulls on sweatpants and grabs a couple waters. He holds one out to Shiro and takes the shirt to put in the laundry, tidies up the room to give himself space for a moment. “I just… really missed you.”

“Keith…” Shiro says again. But what is there to even say? He looks at the water pack in his hand, opens it and sips to avoid staring. 

“It’s fine,” Keith says, and smiles as he crawls back into bed. He fusses with the blankets, rearranging them and fluffing them, discarding Shiro’s empty water pack and nudging him to get him to lie down. His leg hooks over Shiro’s and he pulls himself in close, breathes against Shiro’s throat. 

It makes Shiro smile, knowing that Keith is smelling him, and he ducks his head, leans into Keith’s hair to hide it. It’s cute, really, all the little Galra things. He seems less shy about it than he was before.

“Thanks,” Keith mumbles, lips brushing Shiro’s skin. “Haven’t gotten laid in like two years.”

They both laugh, tight and nervous at first, but each seems to urge the other out, coax it through. Keith curls in closer, laughs louder. Shiro rubs him on the shoulder as he does the same.

As it subsides, he feels tempted to fill the lull. Thank him again, or ask him something mundane, come up with nonsense small talk. Anything to keep from thinking of the void, to avoid feeling strangled by it. Keith’s weight against him helps, a constant reminder that he’s here, safe, _alive_.

And words float in his head, hover there as he debates breaking the silence, feeling too self conscious, embarrassed about how squirmy he is about it. He keeps stroking over Keith’s shoulder to stay grounded, stay in the moment. He’s finally almost ready to speak, to just do it, when he hears a noise.

A little snore, maybe, rumbling from Keith’s throat. Or…

No, he’s purring.

There’s a hundred questions he wants to ask; wants to know when this started, if it grew on its own or he figured it out while he was away with his mom, wants to know how it feels and what it means. But he tilts his head to see that Keith’s eyes are closed, lashes thick against his cheek, soft and peaceful. Asleep. 

Shiro can ask some other time.

_He loves us_ , says a voice inside. Helpful reminder, confident and sated. Shiro isn’t sure whose thought it was.

But maybe it doesn’t matter. 

**Author's Note:**

> [I'm lonely plz be my friend on twitter LOL](https://twitter.com/kacyinthecosmos/status/1310661972610953222)


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